


Then Something Broke In Me

by Stregatrek



Series: Wish That You Were Here [2]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, Epistolary, F/M, no actual timeline we write like the MASH writers, we don't get in the dirty details but it's war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 8,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25459459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stregatrek/pseuds/Stregatrek
Summary: And I never minded being on my own, then something broke in me and I wanted to go home, to be where you are
Relationships: Donna Marie Parker/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Series: Wish That You Were Here [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844095
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	1. I Tried to Leave it All Behind Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onekisstotakewithme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onekisstotakewithme/gifts).



Korea was not a place to carry the finer feelings. And yet somehow, here they were in his chest, as he laid down to sleep after Donna went on her way, a letter from him tucked in her bag. It wasn’t the first she’d gotten; they’d written one another, after the first time she visited the 4077- after their “divorce.”   
God, why had he divorced her? Not that they’d ever been married, but- they could have been. There was a priest in camp, after all. He saw her departing jeep in his mind’s eye, and for a woman with whom he’d spent perhaps seventy two hours in total, she’d taken a surprisingly large portion of his heart with her when she disappeared over the horizon. It only takes a few minutes of tossing and turning to sigh heavily and sit up, wrapped in his blanket. Reaching for the lamp, he found a piece of paper, dodged the pillow Hunnicutt threw at him with an exclamation about the light, and began to write another letter.

My Dearest Donna Marie,

It is rare that I hand-write. My usual custom is to dictate my letters, and have someone else type them. Klinger, usually, here. But I don’t wish to share my thoughts- my feelings- about you with anyone but you. You’ve only been gone a few hours, and I miss you. I feel that I should not have let you go. I know our hands were bound by army regulation, by Red Cross mandates; in short, forces beyond our control. But I feel I ought to have hidden you away somewhere and kept you close even a few hours more. I am sorry I did not.

Hunnicutt is attempting to dissuade me from writing you through the use of various projectiles, so please forgive me if the paper appears… jostled. It’s late, that’s true, but if I can’t speak to you, I will write.

Now that I’ve begun, I hardly know what to say. I only want to say your name, have you here in front of me once more that I may see your smiling eyes and laughing mouth. Donna Marie, you are so warm. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Particularly if the summer’s day in question is a Korean summer’s day; I did not know humidity like this existed, and Boston summers are hardly a dry heat. When I compare you to a summer’s day, I am envisioning one spent on the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard. Do you know Alphonse Mucha my dear? You remind me of “Summer” in his seasons collection, looking back over her shoulder. Though in this case, I am looking back at you. Donna, I miss you.

The letter continues at the top of the next page, written the next day, and Charles shoots a glare at his tentmate as he begins it. Hunnicutt responds with a self-satisfied smile, taking a shoeshiner to a rubber chicken. Charles shakes his head at the chaotic idiocy, and goes back to writing. 

Forgive the difference in quality between this page and the last, my dear, but Hunnicutt covered me in a blanket and took the lightbulb. Desperate measures, but you would not believe the lengths that man will go to for sleep. This morning he is applying a shoe-shiner to a rubber chicken. I admit I am thoroughly confused by his antics, but I will admit also that I have understood nothing about this place since I arrived. I suppose it was quite late, last night, and I can hardly fault him for wanting to sleep. I, however, found myself incapable of entering the realm of Hypnos for thoughts of you. It was wonderful to see you, Donna, inexpressibly so. I hope I shall look on your angelic face once more in short order.

Until then, darling, I remain yours in love,

Charles.


	2. There it Is Again, Sitting On My Chest, Makes it Hard to Catch My Breath

Donna bolts upright, her head snapping back from where it had rested on the desk. The letter from Charles is sitting under her hand, and it’s crumpled when her hand clenches. Her breathing is too fast, she can feel it, but as she realizes where she is it slows. Not Tokyo- she wishes she were back there. This is temporary, this posting, but it’s already giving her nightmares. In Tokyo you can’t hear the shelling. Knowing that it’s happening is vastly different than hearing it happen, and while it terrifies her for herself the fear for the soldiers it’s aimed at is worse, and she finds she’s afraid for both sides of the battle lines. She can’t stop seeing the aftermath, the day she assisted in the 4077’s OR, fetching and carrying and lending a hand where she could, and every time a shell lands she remembers looking at the kid on Hunnicutt’s table, wishing she could do more. And seeing Charles, hunched over a rib spreader picking metal out of places that had no business knowing humanity had ever come down from the trees.  
She rubs a hand across her eyes, worrying for a moment that she’s ruined her eye makeup- and then laughing at herself. Korea is a long way from her side of the Pacific. Oh, she wants to go home. Looking down and realizing she’s crumpled Charles’ letter, she smooths it on the desk and re-reads, going back to what she’d been doing before she fell into such fitful sleep. She hears the shelling again, only in her mind, and flinches. Her bag is hardly unpacked- she has to rummage a bit to find what she wants; a bundle of postcards she’d picked up before leaving Tokyo. Some of them were for family, so her mother and sisters wouldn’t worry that she’d been reassigned- so she didn’t have to tell them she had been. But there’s a whole set with cherry blossoms printed on the front, and they make her think of Charles, of the pattern on the curtains in the ballroom and the trees outside when they’d wandered. She pulls one from the pile, closing her eyes to imagine his face. A truck starts outside, making her jump.  
'Dear Chuck,' Donna writes with a shaking hand. 'The 4077 didn’t get shelled, did it? Only I had a dream that it did.' She stops. Covers the page with one hand, her eyes with the other. Picks up the postcard, looks at what she’s written, and compares it to the missive he sent her. Her fingertips brush across the line with his love, and her lips curve into a tired shadow of a smile.  
The letter he receives goes,

My dearest Chuck, who’s always on my mind. 

Are you safe? I miss you. 

Love, 

Donna.

Charles reads it and his brow furrows, wondering what he’s supposed to read between these lines. Surely she wrote a longer letter? He’ll have to track Klinger down later, to check the post again. For now, he looks at the card, her writing; the postcard is from Tokyo, though he knows she isn’t there. He wants to imagine her there, safe in a city with culture and sushi and kabuki. Donna sitting at a low table across from him, sharing sake and sushi and comparing a kabuki show to some play or other- and the cherry blossoms on the card almost move, faded as they are and covered in dirt. Charles’ fingertips brush across the photo before he folds it, puts it in his breast pocket and carries it around as though she’d sent him real cherry blossoms. There truly is something to be said for Klinger, who (when properly motivated) can secure almost anything, up to and including a blank postcard from Tokyo, on which he writes back a brief answer to presage his longer letter. He asks her for more, next time, and assures her that he is as safe as a person can reasonably expect to be, at a MASH unit with unpredictable and sometimes asinine tentmates. He signs it with his love, though he’s already aware that that won’t fit on a postcard. Even still. He pulls Donna’s from his pocket often enough, simply to look at the word in her handwriting.


	3. Something Broke in Me and I Wanted to go Home

Charles writes with a glass of cognac in his hand, pausing to stare into it, wishing he could form the words for the feelings that keep him up at night.

Hello, Donna Marie,

Isn’t it odd, my dear, that as soon as a man has a place to miss he will miss it? I had so rarely left Boston, and when I did it was always with the intent to return, the knowledge of a fixed date, and it hardly felt like being gone at all. However, the uncertainty of return, and the uncertainty of what I shall find in the city and in myself when I do return, makes me long for it all the more. So it is having known the security of your arms around me. I wish I could fix the hour or the spot (or the look or the words) that would return me to your arms.

Donna reads in the early dawn light, trying to picture what Charles looked like as he wrote. She’s exhausted, and it takes time for the meaning of the words to sink in, the pictures they paint mere brushes at the back of her mind. To go home, she finally realizes, is the point of the letter. To go home- his home and her arms in the same paragraph, as close to each other as she had been to him when they awoke in the VIP tent. It already feels like years, or like a dream. But it was only a few weeks ago. Only a few weeks ago that he told her he loved her, only a few weeks ago that she kissed him, only a few weeks ago, a few weeks. She’s so tired that the word loses all meaning. What is a week, anyway? A unit of time, and with her new posting it feels like a unit of distance, too. When she was in Tokyo it seemed every streetcorner made her smile, remembering the night they’d met. The lampshade on his head, the smiley faces on his knees, his intoxicated giggles. God, but he was sweet. Tokyo’s far from her, now, and she’s far from him. She doesn’t want to be. She reads on:

I love you, Donna. Now that I’ve said it to you aloud I feel I cannot say it enough. I’ve never felt this way before and I must admit I find it slightly terrifying. (You make it easier, of course. You make everything easy for me- from falling in love with you to abstaining from the supply shed- thank you again for that. I find that I wish to return the favor. Have you a burden I can lift?)

Things have been mostly quiet here. As quiet as sharing accommodations with Pierce and Hunnicutt is ever likely to be, in any case. It has given me ample time to miss you. I wish I could ask you all the inane questions that have flitted through my consciousness- I want to know everything about you, it seems. I know enough about you to love you, Donna, beyond all reason. But I want to know everything, the most minute details of you, because when I picture sending you flowers I find I don’t even know your favorite kind. Tell me what they are? Tell me everything, my dear, please. 

Love,

Your Charles


	4. I'm Reaching Out With Every Note I Sing

Dear Charles,  
There are a million kisses for you in this letter, Chuck. Every millimeter of ink and paper has my love in it. I wish I had enough paper to send you a blanket of it, unfold it like a giant road map and wrap yourself it, every piece covered with kisses for you. That would be some map, wouldn’t it, Chuck? Road map of the human heart. Not an anatomy diagram- though if you could point me to the place that love is stored I’d be grateful, so I could figure out which part of myself to tell you is yours besides this thing you hold hundreds of in your hands, this thing I can’t imagine is nice to think about anymore.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to get melancholy. It’s only that I miss you and I wish that you were here.

Let me tell you a story- have you ever seen Redwoods? I don’t know whether they have them in Massachusetts. I guess I picture deciduous trees, over there. I hear the foliage is gorgeous in fall, but I’ve visited the East Coast and never managed to see it. Anyway- Redwoods. They’re tall, Chuck, and you can’t picture how big around they are at the base; my family drove down the coast, one year, and we saw a tree so big that ten men holding hands in a circle couldn’t quite reach around it. Isn’t that incredible? I miss the fog, the coolness, the ferns. The ferns around there were so verdant, they looked like you could lay down in them and you’d get up covered in the world itself, they were that green. 

That’s my favorite color, green. There’s a lot of it where I’m from, and I smile every time I see that deep natural green. Not a lot of it here, sadly- though there are different greens, and I try to like them almost as much. I don’t know what else to tell you, darling, I’m searching for facts about myself but I think the best parts of me are things you have to learn by exposure. The worst, too, but that’s another letter. Let’s see… I have sisters, three of them. My favorite flowers are star jasmine (but after Tokyo it might be cherry blossoms- do you remember reaching up and shaking a branch over my head? You’re so damn tall, Charles. You were laughing, and it made me laugh too. You have such a wonderful laugh, darling, you should use it more often. And you covered me in so many cherry blossoms, I was still finding petals two days later in my unmentionables). My first pet was a labrador, my mother let me name him and I called him Fluffer- I was five, but my talent for names has stuck around, don’t you agree my darling Cuddles? After that all my pets had names you’d approve of, like Winston and Bingley and Edith, but there’s always a special place in my heart for Fluffer. 

You know, you’re a good writer, Chuck, but you’re wordy as Dickens. 

Love, 

Donna

She smiles to herself as she folds the letter and addresses it; picturing his face when he reads the name ‘Fluffer’ and wondering if he ever named any of his pets ridiculous things. Posting the letter is the last thing that makes her smile, that day, moving into a night of paperwork and vague dread, but she holds the image in her mind, pictures Charles mouthing the name in disbelief. She can’t quite smile when she finally sleeps, bone-tired, but the arms which bear her into the realm of Hypnos are those of a lampshade-wearing doctor, and that counts for something in her book.


	5. If I Stay Home There'll Be So Much I Have to Let Go

Charles mouths the name ‘Fluffer,’ and smiles helplessly at the letter as though Donna could see him. He covers his grin with his hand, though he’s facing away from Pierce and Hunnicutt, who have a magazine and a third or fourth round of gin in progress. It’s hardly the setting for a letter the likes of the one he wants to write, but nothing in Korea has ever provided the right ambience even with the addition of his records. Especially since he can’t seem to get the taste of rubber chicken out of his tea pot.

Still, he thinks as he prepares a sheet of paper, Donna is her own kind of ambience. A tiny ecosystem where all the trees have cherry blossoms. 

My beloved Donna,

You’re right. The East Coast is mostly deciduous. I’d love to show you the foliage in the fall; it is truly lovely. Not nearly as lovely as you, naturally, but comparing anything to your beauty is to set it up to fail. You are radiant like the sun, and significantly less detrimental to optical health. 

Was that funny? I want to make you laugh. I imagine I can hear it, sometimes. You have a wonderful laugh, my angel. 

As to your comment about Dickens- another Charles, don’t think I missed that- Dickens was being paid by the word. His verbosity, my dear, was simply a construct in pursuit of a more lucrative paycheck. I, by contrast, simply possess an extensive vocabulary and am therefore able to select the most appropriate word or construct the most evocative phrase without external prompting. The ability to communicate effectively and agreeably is its own reward, something Dickens did not appreciate. 

When it comes to communicating, my dear, what I really wrote to tell you is that I cannot imagine returning to Boston, not as it was. Not as I was. Not without you. Donna Marie, it’s been so long since I saw you, I am ashamed to say that you are disappearing in my mind’s eye. I can hear your laughter, and see your eyes, but I cannot recall your exact height as you stand beside me, or precisely the way you look when you’re thinking. I did, however, swear that I saw you in the light outside OR this morning, and I cannot tell you how pleased I was to receive your letter mere hours later. I long for the day when you are more than a mirage summoned by an exhausted mind. As ever, I am being verbose when it may suffice simply to say- I would like to see you again. Is that short enough to satisfy you? 

I am enclosing a note and a gift from my sister Honoria, who is quite anxious to meet you. I apologize in advance for the doubtlessly chaotic nature of either or both the items. She is quite unpredictable, but I assure you that she is fond of you, however she has decided to show it. 

You have my devotion and my love. 

Charles


	6. And it's Beautiful but There's That Tug in the Sight

Chuck,

I wish I could say I didn’t understand, but if it weren’t for the photos of that night in Tokyo I doubt I’d remember exactly your height either (impressive though it is). I’m five foot ten. Make Hawkeye bend down a few inches and you’ll see how tall I am beside you, and I can’t send you a picture of myself thinking at the moment but I can tell you I have a habit of setting my chin in my hand and I tend to stare at one point- sometimes it’s a person, and then I have to explain why I’m staring! 

I’ve been having a hard time, lately. I’ve been living in my mind. It feels like time traveling- like I ought to come back with a pocket full of flowers and tell my dinner party guests about a fabulous machine and Eloy. Do you know that reference? Chuck, do you read science fiction? Somehow it doesn’t seem quite your speed, but you surprise me so often. But whether you get the reference or not- I spend half my time in my mind, back in the moments we’ve spent together. They’re not enough, Chuck, you know? I want to spend so much more time with you, getting to know you, and the future is full of shadows and it feels like they’re fighting over you. Will I see you again, here? Will I surprise you in Boston, one day (would you welcome me if I did)? Will we even make it out alive and whole, Charles, I don’t want to see a future without you in it but sometimes I do, just before I close my eyes to sleep. 

All we really have here are moments, you know, little instances we can live in because there’s no way to know what’s coming next- it could be a ceasefire or a mortar shell. And the moments with you were the best ones. 

Let me tell you about some other good ones. Not from here, I can’t think of any other good ones from here. Just you and me in Tokyo (or at the 4077) and watching you smile. But before that, there are some. I don’t know if I’ve told you, I’m from the West Coast. I hope the distance of a whole country doesn’t come between us, Mister Boston. I’ve been to Boston, once, it was loud. The cities I’m from aren’t loud like that- Portland has the street car, but if you go up the hill on the west side all you hear is birds. That’s the prettiest place I’ve ever been, up that hill looking out from Forest Park over the city and the river at sunset. I can’t explain it, but I’d love to show you. I’d take you out on the hiking paths and cover your eyes right before the corner of the mountain where you can look back over the whole city, and I can picture you stumbling a little as we go over the tree roots but I’d hold you up. Just like Tokyo. I’d uncover your eyes and you’d say something like “magnificent” and I’d say not as magnificent as you. Or maybe you’d shrug and say something cutting about being out in nature and surrounded by bugs and mud and I’d laugh at you and promise to put ointment on your bug bites when we got out of the woods. I'd show you the mansion, too. My family knew the family that built it, very nice people; I loved Georgiana (the late lamented Mrs. Pittock) when I was a child. My mother says she used to bounce me on her knees while she ran meetings of the Women's Union. It's a pretty house, and it's right in the middle of two lovely parks. I can't wait, now, for you to see it. 

To quote a letter sent to Virginia Woolf (she’s a favorite of mine): I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. Vita Sackville had it right, even if her name was a bit… unfortunate. I just miss you, Chuck, and I want to do things with you simply for the pleasure of your company. I can’t imagine caring what it is we do, when I see you again. If I could see you for even a second, to see you smile at me the way you smiled the last time you caught sight of me, that would get me through. We could be digging trenches together and I’d hate it but I’d love that it was with you. And you’d hate it, and I’d laugh at you complaining. Hopefully you’d kiss me anyway, when we got a break. Why am I fantasizing about digging trenches? This has gotten out of hand. 

Thank you for the gift from Honoria- I won’t tell you what it was, but I think she and I will get along swimmingly. 

And as to your entire paragraph comparing yourself to Dickens and finding Dickens wanting- well, my love, all I could possibly comment as to that is: it’s lucky you’re pretty. 

And you’re very pretty, Cuddles. 

I love you, 

Donna


	7. You're Always On My Mind

My god, Donna, you make me sad. I tried to take a Jeep last night, but the lout who runs the motorpool had some rather different ideas about how far it’s acceptable to drive for an assignation. I wish I could see you. I want to give you more moments.

Thank you for the ones you shared with me. Portland sounds like a lovely place. But then, anywhere would sound lovely if you were telling me we’d be there together. I believe I can forgive your being from the West Coast- I’m sure the place has some merit, if it produced you. I look forward immensely to seeing the parts you love. 

Allow me to tell you a story in return, one I think you’ll like; when I was a child, perhaps nine or ten, a carnival was in Boston, and because of the dirt, crowd, and many other obvious and unsavory reasons, we were not permitted to attend. My sister decided that she wished to put on a carnival of her own. It was midsummer, and the humidity does things to my hair which make me almost grateful to be losing it. Because of this, she wished for my participation in this carnival as the clown. (Perhaps you see where this is going? Perhaps you don’t know me well enough as yet. This ought to enlighten you at least in regards to my sister.) Honoria spent nearly two weeks begging me to dress up as a clown for she and her friends- she recruited others from the neighborhood for equally degrading tasks, such as acrobat and “lion-tamer” (an acquaintance of her possessed a stuffed lion and I distinctly recall the poor thing being dragged across the grounds by our dog by the end of the carnival). I, however, held firm in my refusal to participate in the ridiculous idea, despite the fact that Honoria had found a suitable costume and promised her friends my compliance. Finally, the night before the carnival was to occur, Honoria tried asking our parents to coerce my cooperation. They were astounded that she would ask me to do something so undignified, and were rather against the concept of the carnival in general. She retired, rather discouraged, and I donned the costume she had acquired and told her jokes until well past midnight. The next day, I was in fact the clown at her carnival, and as humiliating as the experience was, seeing Honoria smile was worth it. There are photos- I’m certain that if you ask her, she’d send you one. My sister can be a trial, but she is also the one person on earth (other than you, now, my dear Donna Marie) to whom I can speak with absolute honesty, and I find myself missing her enough that even memories such as her carnival have become fond. 

On the topic of honesty, my dear: I cannot believe you called me pretty. I contemplated ignoring the comment, but to do so hardly felt gentlemanly. You’re radiant, Donna, a spark of heaven’s light, and to be called even “pretty” by you makes me blush. I scarcely believe you can mean it. But then, you are too generous to trifle with me, are you not? The fact is, simply put, that no one has thought so in many years. I’m very glad you think so, my angel, and if you call me pretty to my face I’ll even kiss you for it. That’s the word of a Winchester. Albeit not one particularly accustomed to making such promises. 

Speaking of your beauty- I was thinking of you the other day- more than I usually do, that is, and I find you are always close to my thoughts. Perhaps that is its own kind of closeness. But to return to my point: I started reading in the early morning, and mercifully was largely uninterrupted well into the afternoon. I watched the light move across the pages, the words, and it occurred to me that I could do the same with you. I should appreciate the chance to see you in every light, from every angle, but I do not doubt that it would make me wish to be an artist, to capture your beauty. Perhaps we could have a picnic and sit all day together, and I could watch the sun paint your face in light as it moves across the sky. I’ve had this thought about you before, when you visited and we lost one of our two precious days in the OR; wanting to stop time for you reminds me of the Bible. When God stopped the sun in the sky to give Joshua more time to defeat the Amorites; but now that I write it out and see the word on the page I simply read the part that says amor, and I think of my feelings for you- I don’t think I’d use the sun to defeat a people whose name makes me think of you. Perhaps God would still acquiesce to stop the sun simply for me to appreciate my amor. And look at me, speaking in tongues and referencing the Bible. You have truly made a new man. 

All the love that I possess, 

Charles


	8. Even Closer to You, You Seem So Very Far

Hi Chuck,

This is going to be a serious letter, my dear Cuddles, but I can’t help opening it with a joke. Your last letter you ended “you have truly made a new man,” and I’m so sorry Chuck but- behold,

Here, she’s sketched a plucked chicken. Charles puts his face in his hands when he sees it, not sure if he’s laughing because he’s embarrassed or simply because she’s funny. She’s delightful, his angel, and she’s given him delight yet again, on a day he could use it.

We’re close to you, Chuck, but only for tonight. We haven’t stopped moving, running supplies, and I only know we’re close because you feel further than ever. Normally I know I’d need at least a plane ticket, a jeep, and a three-day pass (things that are far more thin on the ground than they should be) to come see you, but if I went AWOL right now and walked through the night I would just be not quite at your door, and the knowledge that I wouldn’t make it is the only thing keeping me from trying. So I’m writing you another letter, sweetheart, because maybe if I fold it into a paper airplane and throw it the gods of the wind will be kind, Iris herself will bear it to you. I thought so, when I was a little girl. My parents told me the Greek myths as bedtime stories, and I thought that if I gave a piece of paper to the wind Iris would pick it up for me and run it up the rainbow to Olympus. I know she isn’t a goddess of the wind, but she’s a messenger, and that has to be good enough, sometimes. Anyway, I’m listening to the shelling, and wondering if we’re listening to the same shelling, tonight. Isn’t that morbid? I just hope it’s only target practice, that the shelling I’m listening to tonight isn’t more kids for you to work on tomorrow. 

I promise I won’t give this to Iris. It’ll go to the post, and then the censors- hello!- and then, god willing, to you. I never used to quote the Bible either, Chuck, but you called me an angel and I can’t help a quiet prayer here and there that you’re safe, that you’re as well as you can be, that I’ll get to see you again soon. As we walk through the shadow of the valley of death, I will fear no evil. I hope if I write that, if I whisper it with enough conviction, I’ll stop being afraid. I’m afraid of the shelling, of something happening to you, of never seeing you again. I’m afraid of the war, and who I might be after it’s over. I’m afraid it might never be over. And I wish I could walk through this shadow with you, Charles. Somehow it isn’t as bad, when you hold my hand like you did before we went into OR. You help me be less afraid. Of all of it. Thanks for that, Chuck. Thanks for everything. 

Thanks too for the mental image of you dressed as a clown. I can’t say it beats “lampshade hat” as my top favorite outfit of yours, but I wish you had played more as a child. Maybe you’d be less inclined to wild impulsivity as an adult (need I reference the Charles river?), but then that wild impulsivity is one of my favorite things about you. There’s so much you try to keep in, but you’re incredible when you let it out. 

I love you, 

Donna.


	9. Whispers in Your Ear

My dearest Donna,

Waking in the morning in my cot without you wrapped up in me isn’t supposed to hurt so badly, I don’t believe. You only slept in my arms one night, after all. Dr. Freeman says it takes ninety days for our minds to build or break a habit, but I can’t help but think he’s wrong. Or perhaps you are simply a particularly strong habit, beyond definition by conventional psychiatry. 

I was listening to Rachmaninoff this morning. It reminded me of you. Everything good does. You are so dynamic, Donna, you’re like the waves around the lighthouse at Martha’s Vineyard. Honoria and I used to dare each other to run into the sea, there, and one day I ran further than I ought and when I washed back ashore (I was little better than any other piece of flotsam, at seven, so when I say washed I do mean the waves carried me up the beach and left me there, face-down and coughing up sand) I understood for possibly the first time in my life what a powerful force the sea is. They’re two very different things, looking at the sea and being in it. When I compare you to the sea I hardly know what I mean- but I suppose I mean it all. The tempest, the calm, the beauty and the… the danger, I find my pen poised to write, but you aren’t dangerous- no, I take it back, you’re the most dangerous woman I’ve ever met. I could drown in your eyes, the sound of your laugh is like waves eroding the walls caging my heart, and I shouldn’t mind being drawn into your sea. I would appreciate your waves from any angle, even beneath them. I admit, I’m warming to this metaphor as I go. I could very likely expound upon it for pages and pages longer- but you do keep telling me I ought to give shorter compliments. Aphrodite was born from the sea, my dear, but her beauty is an imperfect representation of your own, you who define the Ideal of beauty. 

Is that short enough for you? I could enclose a kiss as well, if that would be more succinct. I miss kissing you. This letter, as with all of mine to you, is simply a very extended way of telling you three simple words- I love you. You must admit, verbose or otherwise, it’s much more rewarding to read an entire missive and the stories and nuances contained therein than just the three words. Though I do not doubt that had I the pleasure of saying them to you in person you would read an entire novel in my eyes. I ought to enclose another kiss, as penance for the last two sentences, which again I recognize as being simply very long ways to tell you I love you and I wish that you were here. 

One thing I _have_ enclosed is a photograph- my neolithic tentmates acquired a camera some time ago, and I told them I was taking a new photo for the army, but really I just wanted to make you laugh. It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to send it to you, but the idea of your laugh is enough motivation to accept a little embarrassment. It seems I simply cannot stop handing you ammunition; I hope I shall never cause grave enough offense to give you motive to use it. I may have misjudged the angle of the photograph slightly, but perhaps that will only make you laugh more. 

With love, I remain yours 

Charles


	10. We All Need Something Watching Over Us

Chuck, Chuck, Charles-

That picture left me just about speechless. Do you have any idea at all how gorgeous you are? You can’t, or you’d be more careful with that power. Throwing pictures of yourself around Korea to be looked at by god knows how many censors- hello, censors!- causing cases of spontaneous adoration. There’ll be an investigation, knowing the military. Exhibit A: unidentified pair of almost unbelievably lovely legs. Exhibit B: some very lucky censors and one even luckier Red Cross worker. Fuck, Chuck- oh, that’s poetry. I’m keeping that. But, to continue the thought- fuck, Chuck, you’re incredible. You give me the longest, most thoughtful compliments I’ve ever received, you call me dangerous (and I probably shouldn’t be flattered by that, but believe me I am), and you send me a picture of your legs. Why haven’t you been snapped up sooner? I mean, I’m infinitely grateful, I may even thank God about it, but I’m sitting here with your letter in my hands and a smile on my face (and your legs tucked into my wallet for safe keeping) and wondering how the most wonderful man in the world is single. Except, are you? Are we? What am I asking- it’s been a long day. I saw things today I would say you couldn’t imagine, except that I know you can, and that you don’t have to because you’ve seen worse. So I’m a little drunk. And I’m re-reading your letter, feeling so incredibly lucky to know you at all, to get these little insights into you through the mail, to hold my memories of you. Just thinking of you makes me smile, fills my chest with all kind of unprintably sappy words that sound trite every time I write them down. I miss you. 

You mentioned music. That’s another of my favorite things from home- the Newport Symphony. Almost everywhere in my home state has its own symphony, or choir, or something- we have a Shakespeare Festival too, did you know? God, you’d love it. It’s been running for twenty years, now, and their productions are fun. The stage is outside! They call it the Elizabethan, and the first time they did Shakespeare there was also a boxing match. Isn’t that grand? I think old Will would have loved it. I’ll take you there, when you visit. It’s a long drive, but it’s worth it. We’ll go down the coast so you can see the homier side of the Pacific, and I’ll take you to see the Newport Symphony. They’re wonderful; the first concert I remember attending was one of theirs, and they did Symphony for New World. I sat in the dark and thought that was how flying must have felt, how truly knowing another soul must be- it was so uplifting, it swept me up like the wind does when you’re too close to the edge of a cliff, and when it was over I was changed. Do you know what I mean? Well, you will, once you’ve heard them play. Maybe I could even pull some strings, get them to do Dvorak again. I might have to do a little sweet-talking, a little bribery, but to hold your hand in the dark and feel how that felt, well, I’m not sure what I wouldn’t do. 

Pull some strings for an orchestra, get it? 

I love you, 

Donna


	11. To Be Where You Are

Donna, dearest,

I’m in Tokyo. I hate it here without you. Everything I see I wonder if we ever saw together (and my god I wish I could recall). As for your last letter- you may have contributed (in your small, sarcastic way) to the lexicon of poetry, and I would like to do the same. You had two words, I have three. I love you, Donna. 

I suppose that was four words, and I suppose I’ve said them before, but Shakespeare has been repeated hundreds of thousands of times and those words retain their power- these are the same. I love you, Donna. I know I sign my letters with love, and I can’t tell you what it does to me that you do the same, but I long to say them aloud once more. Similar to Shakespeare again- it simply isn’t the same alone, reading from a page. Words like these are meant to be a dialogue. I wish I could say them aloud, where you could hear, where you could say them back if you wanted to. I’ll always want you to. And on the topic of Shakespeare once more- yes, of course I’ll go with you, anywhere you want to take me but most especially to see Shakespeare and listen to the symphony. Donna, you’re a miracle, a marvel, you’re everything I’ve always wanted and never had the words to ask for. I have no idea how you came to be so perfect for me- but perhaps the ancient stories of souls created whole and split into two beings are truer than I’ve given them credit for being. 

I miss you, Donna, I miss you. 

Yours with a heart full of love, 

Charles


	12. Pacific Wind

Hi Chuck,

Have you heard? The war’s supposed to end. I want to believe it. But at the same time, I’m not sure I can, because everything I am at home is only half of what I am here, and I worry that I won’t fit back in my old places. Do you know what I mean? Here, I’m a Red Cross Nurse, and I’m brave, and angry, and I have the chance to put my hands to good work. Then I can go out, I can talk and laugh and dance and think about art and music and movies to keep myself from focusing on anything else. And at home, when I’m not here in the dirt up to my neck in something I should have looked before I leaped into, where will that energy go? Where will that part of me go? Will I wander into the desert and start a bar fight just so I have a problem to solve in some familiar place? I used to be a little different. Not much, mind you, but you know better than anyone how seeing the things we’ve seen will change a person. It’s made me a little wild, gave free rein to parts of my personality I didn’t know could pull that hard. Have I ever told you how I hauled you around by the lapels to get you to cooperate, that night in Tokyo? Not that you needed convincing. What am I going to do back in the states, where I’m supposed to ask nicely and talk quietly and not find handsome doctors to haul around hotel lobbies and marry for fun? There’s rules of war, Chuck, and there’s rules of home, too, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to follow the rules of home anymore. 

I love you too, Charles Emerson Winchester the third. Do you capitalize Third? I should know that, I’m in love with you. With your ridiculous name and your adorable smile and the way you write when you’re sober and the way you sound when you’re drunk. Will you come see me first, or will I come see you? Or shall we meet in the middle? Iowa, maybe? I seem to remember you telling me your family has a date with some O’Reillys. I’d do a lot of things to see you on a farm. I’m imagining a three-piece suit, (do you wear oxfords or brogues?), and a pitchfork. Very American Gothic. We should ask Radar how accurate that picture is. I can’t wait to meet Radar. I can’t wait to meet Honoria. I hope the war is over. I hope, I hope, I hope. 

I love you, I love you, I love you 

Donna


	13. Wish That You Were Here

Charles reads her letter with a smile on his face, a glass of cognac in his hand. The tent is silent, Hunnicutt reading a letter from Mrs. Hunnicutt on the other bunk. Their quiet is broken when the Californian says, “Good news?”

Looking up with a smile, Charles brushes the back of his hand over Donna’s writing. “The best. She’s… willing to visit Boston,” 

Shaking his head, Hunnicutt answers, “I wouldn’t’ve guessed you’d be such a sap. You say that like she’s agreed to marry you.” 

Charles sees it, just for a moment, Donna’s smile bright, framed by a white veil. “There remain many things which you do not know about me, Hunnicutt.” He smiles thinly. “And, ah, your news- is it good?” 

“The best,” BJ grins at him, as though the California sun had been exported to Korea. “Peg and Erin send me their love.” 

Taking a moment to retrieve a pen and paper, Charles refrains from comment on who exactly the sap in their tent is and finishes his drink. He sets the glass down, then finishes Donna’s letter. 

My dearest Donna Marie, 

All I can say to you, my angel, is that I wish that you were here. I can’t imagine a world in which you don’t make your own rules, and I want to be part of the world you live in. I hope the rules of my world aren’t too restrictive for you. I find myself praying (yes, me, praying) for peace, for many and multitudinous reasons but particularly so that I can see you and learn your rules. It’s strange to think of you and rules in the same sentence. I never knew you felt bound by them- you certainly don’t show it. Perhaps we can find some to break together. 

I know precisely what you mean about the rules of home, and what you mean about wondering if you’ll fit. There are days when I look in what passes for a mirror and I find myself wondering if Honoria would know me any longer. I suppose I shall find out, soon enough. Occasionally I have dreams- or, more properly, nightmares- that she’ll meet me at the airport and walk right past me in the crowd. I wish I could introduce you to her right away, but at the same time, selfishly I want to keep you to myself just a little longer. 

Still, when you meet her I shall be overjoyed (and terrified). Truly, I can only hope to be there when you tell Honoria the story of the night we met- I have sketched a broad outline, because a broad outline is a generous description of the amount of that particular soiree which I recall. For many reasons but particularly to hear the full story, and to see the pictures- which I know you liberated from Pierce and Hunnicutt- Honoria is very eager to meet you. 

Speaking of breaking rules, Honoria belongs in a category all her own, and it used to exasperate me, but now I can’t wait to join her. Perhaps, between the three of us, we’ll flout so many restrictions that they’ll simply re-write the rule book. I can’t imagine not feeling out of place, at home, but I believe in our ability to make our own place. And our own home. I cannot imagine a situation in which you are out of place, or which you do not meet with grace and aplomb. Or riotous jocularity. I’ll love you equally either way. I am picturing the look on my father’s face when he realizes I have managed to meet a nouveau riche west-coaster whilst stationed in Korea. I can imagine it rivaled only by the face he will make if and when I am lucky enough to call you my own in bond and band. 

By the time I post this letter, I’ve no idea where I shall be. My return address will shortly be in Boston. I’ve enclosed it; you are most welcome to board a plane and take a cab to hand-deliver your reply. Wherever I am, I wish you were here. 

For the first time in Korea, _with hope,_ I’m yours. 

Love always, from the heart wherever it resides, 

Charles

**Author's Note:**

> Backbone for this fic as well as chapter titles from the LOVELY Florence and the Machine song Wish That You Were Here  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdPOvENvu5E


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